Sir Chris Hoy calls for end to 'them v us' attitudes to cycling and driving

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

I don't buy the argument that poor motorists suffer terrible trauma when they kill or injure someone.

 

  Quite simply, if that were the case, they wouldn't do it so often.

 

And if the psychological effects of being a killer were anywhere near as bad as the physical effects of being killed or seriously injured, then motorists would be as cautious as cyclists, and they patently are not, as can be seen by the frequency with which they kill or injure (or just crash into things).   Furthermore potential drivers would be as deterred from taking to the road as are potential cyclists, and hence there would be far, far fewer drivers on those roads.

 

That the roads are full of people happy to endure the terrrible risk of trauma involved in driving (and, indeed, in driving badly), suggests they aren't actually that bothered about those risks because they know they are not going to be traumatised.

Realy? You don’t think that people don’t feel horrific guilt if they kill someone? I’m afraid all of the evidence is against you. The problem is that humans are very bad at risk analysis and think it will never happen to them. This is why education is so important. Get people to think when they are driving “what’s the worst case and how would I feel” rather than just thinking everything is fine because it’s never happened before. I’m not saying it is as bad as being killed or seriously injured, but it can still be, and normally is, life changing knowing you have killed someone.

You just need to look at the way most drivers take blind bends on roads they know. Go down any country lane at rush hour and you will see this behaviour. There could be a broken down lorry or fallen tree round the corner, but people drive like there isn’t. Or motorway tailgating, where the driver in front could have a tyre blow or medical issue, but this is not very common, and in both theses cases the driver themselves is at risk. 

Same me goes for cyclists. Just go in to Oxford any day and see hundreds of cyclists riding like dicks. I have to deal with it every day when I cycle to work. Cyclists who put themselves and me at risk with stupid behaviour, not looking for other cyclists.

More education on road usage, safety and rights all round is needed, and less petty politically driven laws, and less tribal behaviour from the media.

John Smith wrote:

More education on road usage, safety and rights all round is needed, and less petty politically driven laws, and less tribal behaviour from the media.

Can't we make do with cycling celebrities telling everyone to share the road, instead?

John Smith wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

I don't buy the argument that poor motorists suffer terrible trauma when they kill or injure someone.

 

  Quite simply, if that were the case, they wouldn't do it so often.

 

And if the psychological effects of being a killer were anywhere near as bad as the physical effects of being killed or seriously injured, then motorists would be as cautious as cyclists, and they patently are not, as can be seen by the frequency with which they kill or injure (or just crash into things).   Furthermore potential drivers would be as deterred from taking to the road as are potential cyclists, and hence there would be far, far fewer drivers on those roads.

 

That the roads are full of people happy to endure the terrrible risk of trauma involved in driving (and, indeed, in driving badly), suggests they aren't actually that bothered about those risks because they know they are not going to be traumatised.

 

Realy? You don’t think that people don’t feel horrific guilt if they kill someone? I’m afraid all of the evidence is against you. The problem is that humans are very bad at risk analysis and think it will never happen to them. This is why education is so important. Get people to think when they are driving “what’s the worst case and how would I feel” rather than just thinking everything is fine because it’s never happened before. I’m not saying it is as bad as being killed or seriously injured, but it can still be, and normally is, life changing knowing you have killed someone.

 

You just need to look at the way most drivers take blind bends on roads they know. Go down any country lane at rush hour and you will see this behaviour. There could be a broken down lorry or fallen tree round the corner, but people drive like there isn’t. Or motorway tailgating, where the driver in front could have a tyre blow or medical issue, but this is not very common, and in both theses cases the driver themselves is at risk. 

 

Same me goes for cyclists. Just go in to Oxford any day and see hundreds of cyclists riding like dicks. I have to deal with it every day when I cycle to work. Cyclists who put themselves and me at risk with stupid behaviour, not looking for other cyclists.

 

More education on road usage, safety and rights all round is needed, and less petty politically driven laws, and less tribal behaviour from the media.

Doesn't that suggest that people aren't that bad at risk analysis? When stuff goes wrong, it can be catastrophic - but given its rarity, people drive and ride like it won't, because, well, it doesn't. In all my years commuting by bike I've come off twice with nothing more than cuts and bruises. When I was looking at the stats a while back, I calculated that if I was bang average for the UK, with my hours commuting, I had something crazy like another thousand years of it before I got killed doing it. It won't kill me.

Except it might. And I feel a damn sight less invincible when I'm on my bike, in the elements, with drivers skimming my elbow than, say, when I'm in my heated metal box, with the radio on, whizzing along at speeds that none of my senses can reasonably comprehend. 

And education - I'm skeptical. If you're the type of person who will listen thoughtfully to a public information broadcast, aren't you already driving and riding responsibly?

IMHO, we need two things. The incentive imbalance needs to be addressed, in part, by some sort of liability hierarchy like our more civilised neighbours have. And we need to make antisocial driving as socially unacceptable as drink driving has become. Campaigns would help - but a cultural shift is about more than education.

I'm not singling out antisocial riding because it just isn't a problem. As much as it might annoy people, the actual consequences are negligible. People don't get delayed behind cyclists, and they're not always nearly being knocked over on the pavement by thugs barrelling along pulling wheelies, no matter how much their confirmation bias tells them they are. People just like to be pissed off about 'others', and especially 'da yoof'. 

John Smith wrote:

More education on road usage, safety and rights all round is needed, and less petty politically driven laws, and less tribal behaviour from the media.

A pet peeve of mine is the way people massively overestimate the benefits of education, across a whole range of issues.  It rarely works out as advertised, from increasing social-mobility to ending racism to improving driving.  I think this is partly because those promoting it have themselves had a lot of education and tend to over-value it.

Educated people often do awful things.  It's a question of incentives, of costs-and-benefits, not education.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

[A pet peeve of mine is the way people massively overestimate the benefits of education, across a whole range of issues.  It rarely works out as advertised, from increasing social-mobility to ending racism to improving driving.  I think this is partly because those promoting it have themselves had a lot of education and tend to over-value it.

 

Educated people often do awful things.  It's a question of incentives, of costs-and-benefits, not education.

I disagree.  How you educate makes a difference, but the most effective techniques can get costly.  For example, how about convicted close passing motorists being given a full course of cycle training followed by having to ride the route they offended on for an hour or two at peak time?   I can see that being more likely to change behaviour than a classroom session.

danhopgood wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

[A pet peeve of mine is the way people massively overestimate the benefits of education, across a whole range of issues.  It rarely works out as advertised, from increasing social-mobility to ending racism to improving driving.  I think this is partly because those promoting it have themselves had a lot of education and tend to over-value it.

 

Educated people often do awful things.  It's a question of incentives, of costs-and-benefits, not education.

 

I disagree.  How you educate makes a difference, but the most effective techniques can get costly.  For example, how about convicted close passing motorists being given a full course of cycle training followed by having to ride the route they offended on for an hour or two at peak time?   I can see that being more likely to change behaviour than a classroom session.

All  (generally) shitty drivers will have had lessons to not drive shittily, and passed a test in not driving shittily, to get on the road. You could stop the next driver who close-passes you, tell them you're a driving examiner, and ask them to repeat the manoeuvre. They will give you more room the next time.

Education works while you're still in the classroom. What works in the real world is incentives. 

nniff wrote:

That now useless rag the Telegraph reports Chris Hoy's comments under the following headline:

Cyclists should stop hogging the road, says Sir Chris Hoy 

I despair.

Brilliant. Not stirring it up much then.

vonhelmet wrote:

I wouldn’t dismiss PDST out of hand, that could be every bit as debilitating as losing a limb or whatever.

But hey, we don’t take mental illness seriously in this country, so on you go.

Professional Development Service for Teachers?

You're right, I don't think we do take teachers seriously enough in the UK.

Kidding aside, PTSD can indeed be very serious, but I'd suspect that the vast majority of cases where a motorist experiences PTSD would be caused by the motorist (assumption based on RTC causes). Yes, it's a serious problem, but by driving with more care and attention, the chance of injuring someone and then having issues dealing with that can be avoided.

Rather than concentrating on how to recover from injuries, we should be focussed on preventing the incidents in the first place. My view is that driver education would be the simplest most effective way to improve cyclist safety.

vonhelmet wrote:

How many KSIs on the road are the fault of the cyclist rather than the driver, though? What are the numbers on that?

well we can say with some certainty that the numbers are skewed by police forces who can't/won't recognise that fault actually lay with motorists because they are so indoctrinated their interpretation is slanted. There are many, many examples where police will go to extreme ends and break their sworn oath to not discriminate and in doing so break the law to defend motorists and victim blame those that have been killed/injured.

The figures that are bandied around are about 75% sole fault of motorist but without having someone trawl through every incident it'd be very hard to get a true figure rather than some concoted BS via STATS19 for the government.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

vonhelmet wrote:

How many KSIs on the road are the fault of the cyclist rather than the driver, though? What are the numbers on that?

well we can say with some certainty that the numbers are skewed by police forces who can't/won't recognise that fault actually lay with motorists because they are so indoctrinated their interpretation is slanted. There are many, many examples where police will go to extreme ends and break their sworn oath to not discriminate and in doing so break the law to defend motorists and victim blame those that have been killed/injured.

The figures that are bandied around are about 75% sole fault of motorist but without having someone trawl through every incident it'd be very hard to get a true figure rather than some concoted BS via STATS19 for the government.

 

I don't disagree, but at least there are stats, which give an idea of the scale. 

I've got 2 issues with @madcarew's argument here. Firstly, the definition of KSI he uses is incorrect - it doesn't include longer-term emotional or mental consequences.

Therefore, secondly, we simply don't have any idea of the scale of those consequences so there can't even  be a useful debate. As far as we can demonstrate, the risk of KSI from dangerous cyclist-driver interactions is pretty much all on the cyclist.

The conclusion then is that the cyclist is already incentivised really heavily not to ride like a dick - certainly around drivers, and drivers just don't have that particular incentive.

ktache wrote:

I salute more good overtakes than I do "critisise" close passes.

Oh yeah, I do that as well, wave thanks as someone passes me when I know they've been waiting behind me for the right moment rather than just barging past.

ktache wrote:

I salute more good overtakes than I do "critisise" close passes.

There will be equality when we start killing them at the same rate they are killing us.  Same with serious injuries and hospitilisation.

It's not a war, it's effing slaughter.

I'm not sure that's any kind of useful measure of equality. In fact I don't think it's any kind of objective measure of any kind of equality. 

and +1 on the good overtakes.

davel wrote:

 Nice try Chris, undermined by a couple of fatal flaws, I suspect to butter up the audience. 

'In reality, most cyclists drive' yep, with you there... 'and vice versa'. Oh dear, that point's dead.

There is no appeal to empathy when 90%+ of the population can't imagine doing what they perceive as a niche activity that might get them killed.

The argument acknowledges as much when it moves on to forcing a bit of empathy on HGV drivers. Unfortunately that point comes with a dollop of false equivalence: being an inconsiderate cyclist around drivers puts the risk of a KSI on the cyclist. Being an inconsiderate driver around cyclist(s) puts the risk of a KSI on the cyclist(s). 

The KSI risk is not solely on the cyclist. Ask any normal, reasonable human being who has actually run over another human being. In nearly every single case it is a life altering occurrence for them, whether at fault or not. If you're a cyclist riding like a dick and cause your own KSI you have altered the other party's life almost as much as you have altered your own in the majority of cases. If you don't understand that you are one of 'them'. Train drivers who get the 'body on the tracks' often suffer from PTSD, in spite of being almost entirely devoid of blame. 'Most' drivers are our friends, family, and colleagues and are caring, feeling human beings with a deep sense of responsibility. How many of your friends and family would "not give a shit" if they ran over a cyclist who was riding like a dick? It would inevitably affect them deeply. The risk the inconsiderate  cyclist is taking is not solely theirs.

Treat all other road users with respect.

madcarew wrote:

The KSI risk is not solely on the cyclist. Ask any normal, reasonable human being who has actually run over another human being. In nearly every single case it is a life altering occurrence for them, whether at fault or not. If you're a cyclist riding like a dick and cause your own KSI you have altered the other party's life almost as much as you have altered your own in the majority of cases. If you don't understand that you are one of 'them'. Train drivers who get the 'body on the tracks' often suffer from PTSD, in spite of being almost entirely devoid of blame. 'Most' drivers are our friends, family, and colleagues and are caring, feeling human beings with a deep sense of responsibility. How many of your friends and family would "not give a shit" if they ran over a cyclist who was riding like a dick? It would inevitably affect them deeply. The risk the inconsiderate  cyclist is taking is not solely theirs.

Treat all other road users with respect.

I don't think anyone would deny that most drivers feel remorse and sadness after they have been involved in the death of someone, but I'd swap all the remorse in the universe for a moment's forethought.  The majority of cyclist/driver collisions are the fault of the driver, and while it is clearly true that there are collisions where the driver is not at fault, those are relatively few, and like train drivers who suffer through no fault of their own, I feel sympathy for them.  There will always be innocent victims, and sometimes, but not frequently, it will be the driver.  That's no reason to excuse the rest, the vast majority who drive without consideration for others and put them at risk.

Most of the time the driver is to blame and you can't avoid responsibility because you feel sorry afterwards.